


Paint Me

by ofmessaline



Category: Twelfth Night (1996), Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofmessaline/pseuds/ofmessaline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt on Tumblr: "Paint Me: I’ll write a drabble about my character (Orsino) drawing a picture of yours (Viola)."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint Me

**Author's Note:**

> Taken directly from my RP blog illyrianduke.

Orsino was supposed to be writing letters.

His beloved wife of three weeks was off at Olivia’s estate, spending time with her previously lost twin. There was very little country-running that he was willing to do without her, but he had always had a good hand at writing letters to foreign dignitaries .

Today, however, he was entirely unfocused. His mind kept wandering to the beautiful woman that he had managed to make his wife and the way that she made him feel…the feel of her hair, the touch of her skin, the sweet sound of her laugh…no, he was far too distracted for letter-writing.

He had never been a good artist, and he knew that for a fact — when they had been children, Olivia had remarked that he was just a bit better and drawing than he was at poetry. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to at least try.

He could never do justice to Viola’s face, but he knew that it was the best he was going to get for at least another hour or two — and for our favorite melodramatic, besotted Orsino, that was about two hours too long.

As he thought of his fancy’s queen, the more lines the shape of her face took on the blank sheet of paper. He found that he felt almost like he was a young boy in lessons again, feeling like he could be caught slacking off at any moment and loving the feeling in his gut.

After the shape of her face and ears came her hair — which took him a good long while. Did he want to make it the length it had been as Cesario, the length she had told him it had been before the shipwreck, or the length it was now? He sat there, pondering, for a good long while, until he realized what he wanted to do.

He sketched her hair as it had been at their wedding — the absolute happiest day of his life. It had also been the first time he had truly seen her as a woman before him: as his  _wife_. She was the only woman he would ever want, and the only woman he would ever have ruling Illyria beside him.

Once that was done, he moved to her eyes: those beautiful eyes that he loved to watch open in the mornings, that he loved to watch light up the second they met his before she would kiss him…those beautiful eyes that he could hardly see through tears on their wedding day, but he knew that they were as moist as his were…he took an especially long time on her eyes. They had to be perfect, or else he could never forgive himself.

And the eyebrows happened as the eyes did, arched as they were. He could recount many a time throughout their relationship (as page and master and as husband and wife) where she would arch a brow at him, and it felt almost wrong to draw her without one being as such.

Next came her nose. He had found over the past few weeks that he adored her nose, especially since it was easy to both kiss and tap teasingly with the tip of his finger. She would scrunch it at him if he was being especially ridiculous or when she was laughing. He did not take as long on this as he had on her eyes, but he was especially eager for the next part of the equation.

Last, but most certainly not least, came her lips. Those lips that had once been topped with a surprisingly good fake mustache but now were topped with soft skin…and then the lips themselves. He had to admit that he knew her lips particularly well thanks to the number of times per day (or even per hour) that he pressed his against hers, or the time he spent gently tracing and occasionally pinching them. He made sure that they were curved in a wry smile, as they so often were when he had her by his side.

When he finished his drawing, he leaned back in his chair to observe it for a few seconds, smiling. He traced the drawn side of her face with a fingertip before propping the drawing up on his ink bottle and beginning to write letters again, stopping every once and a while to look at the face he so adored.


End file.
